Percival, Elizabeth

The only woman to be mentioned in the history of the Chemistry Department at the University of Edinburgh was Elizabeth E. Kempson.79 Bom on 3 January 1906 in Coventry, she was educated at Wolverhampton High School and obtained an honours degree in chemistry at the University of Birmingham in 1928. She stayed in Birmingham, undertaking research with Norman Haworth.80 Haworth s senior research assistant was Edmund George Vincent Percival, and in 1934 Kempson and Percival married. 

With this volume we welcome David R. Bundle to the Board of Advisors and look forward to valuable input from the prestigious carbohydrate laboratory in Edmonton, Alberta. With regret we record the death, on April 16, 1997, of Elizabeth Percival, a noted authority on marine algal polysaccharides, and on October 14, 1997, of Iqbal R. Siddiqui, who authored the article Sugars of Honey in Volume 25 of this series. 

Finally, Hirst s later contributions to monosaccharide chemistry must not be overlooked. With E. G. V. and Elizabeth Percival, four different trimethyl, 3,4- and 4,5-dimethyl, and the 4-methyl ethers of D-fructose were synthesized from isopropylidene derivatives having well established structures. Certain methyl ethers of D-mannuronic acid and D-glucuronic acid were also prepared, and their periodate oxidation was compared with that of related ethers of D-galacturonic acid. With Elizabeth Percival, he also contributed articles on the methyl ethers of mono- and di-saccharides, and on glycofuranosides from cyclic carbonates, to Methods in Carbohydrate Chemistry, Vol. 2 (1963). 

The Synthesis of Methyl Ethers of Mannuronic and Glucuronic Acid, and their Reaction with Periodate, R. A. Edington, E. L. Hirst, and Elizabeth E. Percival, J. Chem. Soc., 2281 (1955). 

The Presence of L-Guluronic Acid Residues in Alginic Acid, D. W. Drummond, E. L. Hirst, and Elizabeth Percival, Chem. Ind. (London), 1088 (1958). 

Methyl Ethers of Mono- and Disaccharides, E. L. Hirst and Elizabeth Percival, Methods Carbohydr. Chem., 2, 145 (1963). 

The Water-soluble Polysaccharides of Cladophora rupestris and of Chaetomorpha spp., Part II. The Site of Ester Sulphate Groups and the Linkage between the Galactose Residues, Sir Edmund Hirst, W. Mackie, and Elizabeth Percival, J. Chem. Soc., 2958 (1965). 

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